Thursday, September 27, 2018

Christmas Kokeshi and Santa Ornaments in Fused Glass

Is it ever too early to start thinking about Christmas? How about some Christmas Kokeshi and a matching Santa!

My finished Santa and Kokeshi.

After creating the pattern for the Santa, I realized I needed to make tiny glass dots for Santa noses, belt buckles and pom-poms. To create these components, I cut glass squares in the appropriate colors and then heated them in my kiln to 1500 degF. Glass squares melt into perfect balls, just like magic.

Glass squares, cut and ready to become dots.

When designing this Santa, I wanted him to match the style of my Kokeshi but also remind me of the characters from the It's a Small World ride at Disney. I love their round, happy faces! After transferring my patterns, I hand cut and shaped Bullseye sheet glass into the parts I needed. Everything gets a good washing and then it's time for assembly.

Glass parts ready for Kokeshi and Santa.

Every ornament gets layered by hand. Each piece of glass gets secured with a tiny drop of Elmer's glue. The glue burns off before the glass starts to melt, but it helps keep everything together so I can carry things to the kiln.

Each Kokeshi and Santa gets a pair of tiny glass eyes and crushed glass in medium and fine granulations to create fur trim on their cute little holiday outfits.

Adding fur trim to fused glass Christmas ornaments.

I have decided that it's never too early to start getting ready for the holidays.